Fairfield County (CT) Cartoonists; E.B. and Katharine White’s Home for Sale; Lots of Peter Arno on Pinterest; William Steig’s Connecticut Home For Sale

Here’s a really nice article in Vanity Fair, “When Fairfield County Was the Comic-Strip Capital of The World” – written by Cullen Murphy, whose father drew “Prince Valiant” — a number of New Yorker artists show up (as you might expect as the county also had a large concentration of cartoonists from the magazine…see this link for more on that).

Why is this on Ink Spill, you might ask? The White’s were major figures in the development of the New Yorker; both intersected with the magazine’s cartoons. One of Mr. White’s many duties at the New Yorker was tinkering with cartoon captions. The most famous tinkering resulted in the Carl Rose drawing that appeared in the December 8, 1928 New Yorker:

In the earliest decades of the New Yorker, Katharine White headed the fiction department. The cartoons fell under the fiction department’s umbrella until James Geraghty was appointed in 1939, when a stand alone art department was created. In his book, The Art of The New Yorker: 1925-1995, the magazine’s former Art Editor, Lee Lorenz wrote of Ms. White: “She remained a powerful voice in the selection of the magazine’s art even after she and her second husband, E. B. White, moved to Maine in the mid-thirties.”

And for a wonderful read on that era of the New Yorker: Thomas Vinciguerra’s Cast of Characters: Wolcott Gibbs, E.B. White, James Thurber, And the Golden Age of The New Yorker (W.W. Norton & Co., 2016)

Billed as “182 Best Peter Arno Images on Pinterest” — it doesn’t disappoint. The post even includes the dummy cover for my Arno biography.

Anyway, it’s fun to see so much Arno in one place. New Yorker cartoons, New Yorker covers, advertisements — all kinds of wonderful art by the master.

_____________________________________________________________________

William Steig’s Kent Connecticut Home For Sale

Fear not — Ink Spill is not pushing real estate. It’s just coincidence (or as Curly of the Three Stooges would say, “a coinkydink”) that two homes by three major New Yorker figures are up for sale. This is William Steig’s home in Kent, Connecticut. Read all about the home here.

Mr. Steig’s entry on the Spill’s A-Z:

William Steig Born in Brooklyn, NY, Nov. 14, 1907, died in Boston, Mass., Oct. 3, 2003. In a New Yorker career that lasted well over half a century and a publishing history that contains more than a cart load of books, both children’s and otherwise, it’s impossible to sum up Steig’s influence here on Ink Spill. He was among the giants of the New Yorker cartoon world, along with James Thurber, Saul Steinberg, Charles Addams, Helen Hokinson and Peter Arno. Lee Lorenz’s World of William Steig (Artisan, 1998) is an excellent way to begin exploring Steig’s life and work. NYer work: 1930 -2003.